Angiosperm Mating Systems

An “abominable mystery”: angiosperm sexual systems have been a source of both interest and frustration for the botanical community since Darwin. Self-fertilization presents a potential route for reproductive assurance for plants in challenging and unstable environments. As anthropogenic climate change accelerates, selfing could be the way of the future or have unforeseen costs. My dissertation explores how self-fertilization impacts survival through speciation, extinction, and response to climate instability – and how systematic study bias may mean we know less about this vital facet of plant life than we think. Preliminary results of my work suggest that studies of the mating system may be biased against outcrossing species in some families. A biased understanding of mating system distribution could challenge the existing understanding of the stability and prevalence of selfing and mixed mating systems. I further hypothesize that selfing as a trait leads to decreased diversification, indicating either lower rates of speciation or a higher rate of extinction. In the Anthropocene, selfing could be favored short-term by climate instability but lead to extinction in the long term. This would illuminate a new feedback loop of biodiversity loss in plants, a foundational piece of all terrestrial ecosystems.